Previously: Jon Snow is still dead, Dany is moving to the Dothraki Golden Girls retirement community, and the Brienne-Sansa alliance finally begins. .
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Democracy Diva: The previouslies are a warning to the audience: you definitely don’t remember any of this stuff. Theon’s dad and sister! Lord Karstark getting beheaded by a still-alive Robb! Bran knows a really smart bird!
Credits take us to Kings Landing, and then throw PYKE at us. Then Flayed Winterfaux, The Wall That Killed Our Dreams, Braavos, and Meereen. Yay, no Dorne! This episode is off to a great start.
Forbidden Forest, or wherever dudes who are also trees who are also birds live in this universe. Bran’s eyeballs go white and we see little boys swordfighting at Winterfell. I thought it was young Bran and Rickon, but Postpubescent!Bran and the Three-Eyed Raven are in the scene, watching, and they realize it’s Ned practicing with his little brother Benjen. (M: OH NO MY HEART.) Ned tells his brother – well, I’ll just let tumblr kick you in the feels:
Catherine: I am SO MAD about the amount of sadness I’m experiencing right now.
Diva: IF I HAD TO BE SAD WHEN I HAPPENED UPON THAT GIFSET, SO DO ALL OF YOU. SHARE MY PAIN, WORLD.
“They were all so happy,” Bran says, and Three-Eyed Raven is like, “and so were you, before everything sucked!” in case you weren’t already crying.
Then an awesome little Katniss-looking motherfucker rides in on a white horse made of the dreams of fan theories. She is Lyanna Stark, and she is probably the character I was most desperate to see in these flashbacks, so I am EXCITED. Bran recaps: Lyanna was Ned’s sister, whom he never talked about because fan theories. She’s the statue in the crypts holding the feather that King Robert left in season one and Sansa found more recently.
Catherine: Lyanna is the character that everyone keeps telling Arya she’s so much like right? Seems yep.
Diva: Yes and yes.
Lyanna and her brothers call over to a very large stableboy named Willas, whom Bran immediately recognizes as Hodor. But Willas can talk. I want this scene to go on forever. Not-As-Old-Nan intervenes because she doesn’t want Willas learning to fight, and then the Three-Eyed Raven rudely takes us out of this happy Winterfell memory.
Bran complains, but the Three-Eyed Raven is all, you can’t stare into the Mirror of Erised forever, Harry. (M: Harry Potter references on point.) Bran asks Hodor what happened to make him not able to talk anymore, but Hodor just, you know, Hodors. He carries Bran out of the cave-forest thing, and Meera is outside brooding. She does not give any fucks about Bran’s Winterfell visions. She’s had it with the whole waiting and not dealing with the imminent ice zombie apocalypse thing. A dancer in a Lady Gaga video Child of the Forest who’s chillaxing nearby gives her some wisdom.
Catherine: This shot was so sudden and so jarring that a gif can’t even do it justice. I didn’t realize Bran and the Children of the Forest were like… bros now. Are they gonna start solving mysteries next?
Diva: At the very least, I hope they start sharing makeup tips.
Meera continues to brood, but at least the view is amazing.
The Wall. Ser Alliser tells Davos to open the damn door, insisting “you’ll all be fine, and your little dog, too!” Davos and the Trusted Bros get ready to fight as one of Alliser’s men starts banging down the door.
Mari: Davos says he isn’t much of a fighter and apologizes for what the Trusted Bros are about to see. 1.) Real good as far as potential last words go and 2.) Something I’m likely to say, but before I start dancing. I mean, I still will dance in public, but at least I apologize.
Diva: Then they hear something way bigger, knocking down a way bigger door – it’s our favorite giant, breaking open the gate with Tormund “Ginger NotMance” Giantsbane and a zillion other wildlings. The giant also slams a dude to pieces against a wall, so that kind of shuts everybody up. And Probably Definitely Edd calls Alliser a traitor, and tells his men to throw Alliser and his crew into the cellars.
Mari: I know I wouldn’t want to put up a fight against Wildlings and a Giant, but those guys gave up pretty easily. I guess they weren’t as cool with murder as they first led me to believe.
Diva: They’re only cool with easy murder, like when they’re ganging up on one innocent lord commander with perfect hair.
Definitely Edd brings Tormund in to see the corpse of Jon Snow, and Tormund looks sad and says they’ll start preparing a fire.
Catherine: Oh wow someone finally remembered you’re supposed to burn his corpse. It only took a couple of fucking days.
Diva: Preach.
Somewhere on the bad streets of Kings Landing, a man brags to a crowd about showing his dick to Queen Cersei during her Walk of Shame, Shame, Shame. I love how all the women pouring drinks in this scene are rolling their eyes. The man goes around the corner to take a piss, and Frankenstein’s Kingsguard Who Is Definitely Not The Mountain casually smashes his head into a wall and kills him, and walks away. Like you do.
Mari: Like that other giant just did to a Night’s Watchmen. I’m not sure what the parallel is except for IF YOU BIG, YOU CAN SHUT PEOPLE UP. #sizematters
Diva: Cersei is in her chambers when Frankenguard NotMountain appears. He escorts her downstairs, where a bunch of armed dudes are blocking their way. They have orders from the King not to let her leave to attend Princess Myrcella’s funeral, because Tommen has no chill. Cersei wants to talk to Tommen, but the guards tell her he’s already left.
Baelor’s Sept, Altar of Murdered Lannisters, sponsored by Creepy Eye Stones. Tommen asks about who killed Prince Trystane, which they somehow already know about, and Jaime just shrugs as if it wasn’t VERY OBVIOUSLY THE SAND SNAKES. King Tommen tells his dad-uncle that he thinks Cersei killed Prince Trystane. Jaime’s all, she wouldn’t do that, even though we are all aware that she totally would, but whatever. Jaime asks Tommen why he hasn’t gone to see Cersei, and Tommen says he just can’t. He couldn’t even protect his own wife and his own mother, so he’s feeling pretty useless. Jaime tells his nephew-son to ask Cersei for forgiveness.
The High Sparrow shows up, and Tommen demands to see Margaery, but Sparrow’s all, nope, she still hasn’t confessed. Jaime sends Tommen away so that he can probably beat the shit out of the Sparrow with his golden hand. Instead, they just have a heated philosophical conversation about punishment and atonement and shit.
Jaime asks about his own sins – he doesn’t mention incest, but he goes over a few other crimes – and asks what his atonement should be, and grabs his knife. High Sparrow is all, fine, kill me, but don’t forget my other little sparrows are all around me. Even though all of them are poor and unimportant, together the Faith Militant can overthrow empires, Cookie Lyon style.
Mari: I was actually kind of impressed with Tommen because I briefly thought he was doing this to Cersei for orchestrating to have Margaery thrown in prison. BUT NO. All of the feelings I could potentially have for Cersei keep getting suffocated by the fact that she opened the doors for the Faith Militant and I cannot stand any of them.
Diva: Amen. Faith Militant are the worst, and they are totally of Cersei’s own making.
Meereen. Tyrion makes a bad dick joke and then apologizes for making bad dick jokes. Grey Worm seems fully recovered (yay!) but they still don’t know who burned the ships. Varys shares the bummer news that the rest of Slavers Bay is back to trading slaves, and Missandei and Grey Worm share a look that breaks my heart. Missandei exposits that the dragons haven’t eaten a bite since Dany left. Tyrion tells them that dragons don’t do well in captivity. He knows this because that’s what he does – he drinks and knows things.
Catherine: Tyrion ‘hold my beer’ Lannister.
Diva: Varys stands at the entrance to the dragon dungeon as Tyrion walks down the steps alone. Finally, one of the dragons comes closer and snarls a bit. Tyrion explains that he’s just one of Daenerys’s buddies, but it’s unclear that the dragon understands or cares.
Tyrion tells the dragon the story about how he wanted a dragon when he was a little boy, and when his uncle told him they had all died a hundred years ago, he cried. “But here you are,” Tyrion tells the dragon, and he unlocks the chains. The other dragon is like, “oooh, do me! do me!” so Tyrion obliges, and quickly walks back to Varys.
Braavos. Arya is still blind and looks like someone’s been beating the hell out of her with a stick. Nameless Cunt Who is Called Waif But Our Name is Better plays the name game with her and continues to beat Arya brutally until she finally disappears, and Arya swings and swings at no one. Then Jaqen catches her stick and they play some more Name Game.
Mari: I’m always so torn about Arya’s story. I like to see her becoming a badass, but then it hurt me as we watched her dying inside throughout the seasons. And I’m glad she’s getting training and protection, but they want to strip her of her Stark-ness and DISLIKE. SHE IS ARYA STARK, DAMMIT.
Catherine: Same. Arya is my favorite character. I want her to stay Arya and also stop getting smacked in the face.
Diva: I cosign all of the above confused but definitively pro-Arya feelings.
Winterfaux. Roose tells Ramsay, way for all of your best hunters to get murdered trying to capture Sansa and Theon, you useless piece of human garbage. Ramsay insists Sansa is on her way to the Wall to find Jon Snow. Roose clarifies to a Lord Karstark who’s apparently also here that Jon’s a bastard, not a Stark, and Ramsay gets all defensive about how he too USED to be a bastard. Karstark says the North won’t be secure if there’s still Starks running out there. Ramsay proposes taking a small band of men to attack the wall and murder Jon. LOL, TOO LATE, DOUCHEBAG! Roose says there’s no better way to unite the North against them than doing that stupid plan. Ramsay reminds his father that they only need the three biggest houses of the North on their side – Karstark, Umber, and Manderley. Lord Karstark reminds the audience that he hates the Starks because Robb cut off his father’s head, so he’s on #TeamBolton.
Roose tells Ramsay that mad dogs like him get slaughtered, but someone interrupts this beautiful moment of fatherly love to announce the birth of Roose’s new child. A boy, of course. Ramsay slowly pulls his father into a congratulatory hug, and Roose says, “you’ll always be my firstborn.” Ramsay thanks him, and suddenly a knife goes into someone’s stomach. It took a minute for me to figure out who stabbed who, until Roose fell to his knees and hit the ground. Ramsay wipes the blood off his knife and orders the maester to tell everyone that his father was poisoned by their enemies. And to send for his stepmother and the baby. Well then.
Mari: As I Tweeted, predicting that Ramsay is going to kill someone isn’t that big of an accomplishment, but last week I did say that Roose needed to watch his damn back because Ramsay could JUST KILL HIM. I felt it coming.
Diva: Ten murder points for Mari!
Lady Walda and the baby meet Ramsay in the yard. Ramsay asks to hold him, and Walda passes her baby over, and my blood turns into ice.
Catherine: She had no choice here but Ramsay is the LAST PERSON in the WORLD I would hand a baby to. I would literally rather let the dragons be my babysitters.
Diva: Oh, I’d let Drogon hold my baby before Ramsay, any day of the week.
Ramsay hands back the baby because my heart will explode if he doesn’t, and says he’ll lead Lady Walda to Roose. Instead, he brings her to the dog cages, and we get this incredibly long, drawn-out, completely painful scene of the dogs barking and Ramsay opening each individual cage door as Walda keeps asking where Lord Bolton is. Ramsay be like:
Ramsay whistles and unleashes the dogs on Lady Walda and the baby. Well, that was a hundred different kinds of terrifying, but at least the camera cut away from the actual horrific murder!
Somewhere Between Winterfaux and the Wall. Theon and Pod collect wood for a fire as Brienne and Sansa get to chatting. Brienne says that she saw Arya with a man who didn’t seem to hurt her – they didn’t want to leave each other. Awww, #houndfeelz. (M: Imagine if Sansa knew it was The Hound…) (D: #EVENMOREFEELZ) But Arya disappeared. Sansa asked how she looked, and they bond over Arya looking like the opposite of a little highborn lady.
Diva: Brienne asks what happened to Sansa at Winterfell, but she just says nothing for awhile, and admits that she should have gone with Brienne when the offer was first made. Brienne doesn’t hold it against Sansa, because life is full of difficult choices and all that. Sansa walks over to Theon, who’s worried about Ramsay hunting them. Sansa assures Theon that they’ll be safe once they’re with Jon at the Wall. (#feels) Theon recounts his crimes: killing those boys who he pretended were Bran and Rickon, killing Ser Rodrick, betraying Robb. Sansa tells him he can be forgiven if he joins the Night’s Watch, but Theon doesn’t want to be forgiven. He wants her to stay with Brienne and Pod, to keep her safe, but he can’t come. He says he would have died to get her to the Wall, and she hugs him, and he cries, and my heart falls out of my butt. Theon tells Sansa he’s going home.
Pyke. Asha Yara Greyjoy, Theon’s sister, tells her father Balon that the Glovers have retaken Deepwood Motte from the Ironborn. All of their men died, and that was their last hold in the mainland. He wants to take more, but she’s like, um, and why? Ironborn are unbeatable at sea but they can’t win these land battles. Balon calls her attempt to rescue Theon a “foolish mission.” She challenges him back, and reminds him that the kingdom he fought to win doesn’t fucking exist. The war is over. He tells his daughter that when she rules the Iron Islands, she can make peace, but his word is law, so fuck off and take some more damn castles.
Balon crosses the ludicrously rickety old bridge connecting the towers of the islands together, in a torrential downpour. There’s some other dude at the other end of the bridge, and Balon tells him to GTFO of his king’s way. Then he seems to recognize the dude, who he thought would be dead. The guy gets snarky and proclaims himself the Drowned God, which is kind of a big blasphemy around these parts. But he insists men start praying wherever he sails. He calls Balon “brother” and says it’s time to let someone younger rule. Balon tells a lovely story he heard about his brother going crazy on a ship, getting tied up, and then cutting off the tongues of his crew, but he’s mostly mad about an Ironborn losing control of his ship during a storm. “I am the storm,” Balon’s unnamed brother whose name I know responds, and when Balon pulls his knife, Brother full on knocks him off the bridge. Balon spirals a long way down to his death.
Okay, who had like five years in the “when will all of Melisandre’s Gendry-penis-blood leeches come true” pool? YOU WIN!
Mari: Sadly, it wasn’t me. Also, that’s what you get for crossing rickety old bridges in a torrential downpour, bro: DEATH.
Catherine: There were predictions in those leeches? I got too distracted by Gendry’s penis. Whoops.
Diva: A completely understandable distraction.
Beachfront funeral. The Ironmen carry Balon’s body into the water and pray. Yara promises to kill the men who did this – she swears it on the Salt Throne, which is like the Iron Throne but worse for your cholesterol. (M: A+) A priest-type tells her the throne isn’t hers to swear on – not until the Kingsmoot elects her.
Mari: Does that make the crazy, I AM THE STORM murderer Drumpf?
Diva: #MakePykeGreatAgain
The Wall. Davos enters Melisandre’s chambers and she is as depressed as we’ve ever seen her. With very little preamble, Davos straight-up asks Melisandre if she can bring Jon Snow back to life. “If you want to help him, leave him be,” Melisandre warns him, but Davos seems to think it’s necessary. She says she’s known of it to happen, though it shouldn’t have been possible, and it isn’t possible for her. He recounts her talents drinking deadly poison and birthing baby dementors. She says all of her prophecies have been wrong, and Davos is right. Davos tells her that he’s not religious, but she showed him that “miracles” exist, casually omitting the part where she burned his favorite little girl in the world on a stake and he APPARENTLY STILL THINKS MELISANDRE IS AWESOME. He begs her to try to resurrect Jon Snow.
Trusted Bro HQ. Jon is still dead, and also in a loincloth. We are treated to an extended scene of Melisandre giving him a spongebath while Tormund, Davos, and Definitely Edd watch, in case you’re into that. (M: Or you like your scenes with extra Jesus imagery.) (C: Hot.) Melisandre starts chanting in another language (but we mysteriously don’t get subtitles) while she cuts off locks of Jon’s hair and tosses them in the fire, which is a very wasteful thing to do to such beautiful hair. (C: I was surprised we didn’t see the magic drain out of it like in Tangled, tbh.) Melisandre puts her hands over Jon’s chest as the music gets creepier and her chanting gets more emphatic. Just when you think our beautiful-haired snow prince is about to wake up, he totally doesn’t. And everyone looks super bummed.
Melisandre gives Davos the world’s most pathetic look. Tormund is the first to walk away in silence. Melisandre follows, then Edd. Davos takes a long look at Jon before he leaves as well. Finally, it’s just a sleeping Ghost and a permanently-sleeping Jon.
Suddenly, Ghost’s eyes open. And suddenly, Jon’s eyes open, and he gasps, terrified.
YOU GUYS! THE THING HAPPENED!
Okay. Stray feelings time:
1) The Bran stuff was great, mostly because I want to know every detail about Lyanna Stark, and the dash of Hodor backstory really threw me for a loop in a good way.
Mari: Agreed. I’m not even mad if they use Bran as a convenient flashback machine at this point. GIMMIE GIMMIE.
Catherine: Bran is one of only a few cast members still growing up so I’m always happy to see him at the beginning of a season so we can talk about how 30 he is now.
Diva: So very much 30. He has a 401(k) and everything.
b) I’m not sure why Ramsay didn’t kill his father in a more subtle way – like, not in front of his maester and a powerful lord. And Roose never trusted Ramsay, not for a second – don’t you feel like he’d have been wearing mail at all times just to avoid this exact situation?
Mari: I’m over Ramsay in a big way. Not even like, “oh gosh I hate him!” but I’m just DONE with the show’s insistence on one-upping themselves with this character when WE GET IT. HE’S BAD. They’ve truly brought him to a place where not even his death will be satisfying like it should be because it seems too little. (As an aside, between the Sand Snakes, Jon and Ramsay, Bastards are on the up and up!)
That said, I can only be comforted by the idea that Ramsay is likely to make some incredibly bad choices. This little shit basically wants to march around and kill everyone and I’m thinking that we’ll see Roose’s words come true and Ramsay ultimately taken out like the dog that he is.
March on the Wall, Ramsay. Jesus Jon Superstar is waiting for you.
Diva: A+, 1430, and YUP X INFINITY.
cat) I’m not sure whether it makes Tyrion special (or confirms any fan theories), that the dragons don’t try to eat him, since he mentions that they’re also chill with Missandei and basically anyone who is friends with the queen. Does this track with the fact that those dragons also eat innocent children? IDK.
Mari: Yeah, IDK. I think that scene was maybe a little bit too brief and fan-service-y. Tyrion unchains the dragons and they are literally like, “cool. We’ll just go back to our corners.” I know it’s just episode two, BUT IT’S SEASON SIX, GAME OF THRONES. We need more than this.
Diva:
direwolf) I have virtually no idea why Davos would want to resurrect Jon Snow. I understand why the show and the audience want him to come back – obviously, I too have seen his hair – but I truly can’t understand what the motivation is for Davos. He is enlisting the woman who murdered an innocent child he cares about, which eventually led to the death of Davos’s king, to do magic to resurrect a very nice, brave boy who tried to do the right thing for the realm. Maybe we’re going to learn Davos’s motivations later, but this just seems like a HUGE LEAP to take for a dude you don’t know particularly well. But also, WHO CARES, JON SNOW IS BACK, AT LEAST THEY DIDN’T LEAVE HIM UNDERGROUND LIKE THE SCOOBIES DID TO BUFFY!
Mari: TRUE. We don’t know why, but Davos is already a better Scoobie when it comes to resurrection but not the best because he also peaced out pretty early and didn’t even wait a second for Jon to catch some life.
I think everyone and their mom saw what was coming and it happened in a way most people thought it would; by the hand of the Red Woman. Still, I’ll give credit to the episode for putting a ton of tension in the resurrection scene, for doing some visually interesting things, for having Ghost wake-up and then Jon wake-up, for that super trope-y big breath and cut to black that was still everything I hoped for.
Catherine: I don’t know Davos personally but I trust him, ya know? I trust him.
Diva: And now, your #gameofsnark highlights:
CONFIRMED: JON SNOW’S MOTHER IS HODOR #GameofThrones #gameofsnark
— Democracy Diva (@democracydiva) May 2, 2016
I will say though, that he just gave Jamie one hell of a sizing. Like, “I just owned you wearing this potato sack, bitch.” #gameofsnark
— Mari (@mynameismarines) May 2, 2016
Updating my resume: “I drink and know things.”
WATCH THE JOBS ROLL IN. #GameofThrones #gameofsnark
— Mari (@mynameismarines) May 2, 2016
That awkward moment when you forget you raised a psychopath #gameofsnark
— Franuel (@LollyWheeks) May 3, 2016
Sansa: “Where will you go?”
Theon: “I’m going back to school to study art therapy.”#gameofthrones #gameofsnark— Haley Dercher (@HaleyDercher) May 2, 2016
“How’d the king die?” “He just fell of a bridge or whatever. No one else was there. Let’s just bury him. I have shit to do”. #gameofsnark
— Catherine McGinnes (@CatherineJane91) May 2, 2016
I like how they are keeping dead Jon modest with that little Jesus rag. #GameofThrones #gameofsnark
— Mari (@mynameismarines) May 2, 2016
Why did she have to cut his beautiful hair? Melisandre is truly evil #DemThrones #GameofThrones #gameofsnark
— Tayci (@TayciBear) May 2, 2016
These idiots didn’t get to see the dramatic breath because they didn’t have like 10 seconds of patience. #GameofThrones #gameofsnark
— Mari (@mynameismarines) May 2, 2016
Thank you. But you still need to die horribly Red Witch #RevengeForShireen #GameofSnark
— SnazzyO (@SnazzyO) May 2, 2016
Oh my god. I cannot wait to see those traitorous murdery cowards faces next week. I relish the thought. #gameofsnark
— Samantha Ania (@SamanthaSpice91) May 2, 2016
Jon Snow just needed a bath and a haircut? #GameofThrones #gameofsnark
— Haley Dercher (@HaleyDercher) May 2, 2016
#gameofthrones#gameofsnarkpic.twitter.com/AssVVHx5ni
— Democracy Diva (@democracydiva) May 2, 2016
Don’t forget to join us for #gameofsnark! We live-Tweet along with the show on Sunday nights at 9pm EST. You can Tweet whenever you watch, however, and we’ll keep picking our favorite Tweets until the recap goes live.
See you next week!
I'm a J.D. by day/blogger by night who directs her snark and judgment primarily towards celebrities and their many red carpet mishaps. Blogging from the style capital of the world (just kidding - I live in DC), I rant and rave over the best and worst in fashion and pop culture.
I'm a 30-something south Floridan who loves the beach but cannot swim. Such is my life, full of small contradictions and little trivialities. My main life goals are never to take life too seriously, but to do everything I attempt seriously well. After that, my life goals devolve into things like not wearing pants and eating all of the Zebra Cakes in the world. THE WORLD.
I am a 30-something year-old human woman who lives in Maine. I'm a freelance writer who mostly spends time that I should be doing that, watching T.V. I also love reading and comic books way too much.
